I Bring the Doom of Middle-Earth
by AndNowSilence
Summary: I shouldn't be here. I really shouldn't. I don't even speak the language, they clearly don't trust me, and I know way too much. All I can do is mess things up. I never should've gone out in that storm, but something clearly brought me here. So why do I have the sneaking suspicion it's nothing good, and I might doom us all?


**A/N: So, I don't usually write fanfiction, but this is an idea I've had stewing for a little bit of time that I really wanted to try out. I guess you could call it a tenth walker, though I hope that won't scare too many of you away. I just really wanted to see what would happen if someone from our world found themselves in the middle of the Lord of the Rings. This chapter is kind of a prologue, I'll try to get the next up soon, but in the meantime any critical feedback would be very much appreciated!**

It was a dark and stormy night.

That's really the only way I have to start this. Believe me, if I had anything better, I would use it, but as it stands the sentence above is quite true and very serviceable to my purposes. Because it was a dark and stormy night. Very dark, very stormy, and I was home all alone.

That night is about the last sane thing I can remember.

So please, allow me to tell you the tale of how my own stupidity effectively ended my life as I knew it, threw me god knows where and god knows when into a world that I thought existed only in stories, and how my foolishness prevailed to alter things that might best have been left unaltered. I don't really know on that one. I'll let you decide.

But anyway, let's begin.

I guess it all started when I got home on Friday, April 13th. And no, you can't tell me that date wasn't significant. If I wasn't suspicious before, I sure as hell am now. Show me a black cat and I probably won't move a pace for a good week, but this is all beside the point.

I got home just a couple of minutes before the storm started. My parents were away, visiting my brother in college, so I had no supervision. Now, under these circumstances, you might think that any normal high school senior would be having an awesome, crazy party, especially since the yard of my house is so big and the area where I live so rural and isolated and devoid of nosy neighbors. But not me. I've never been quite normal like that. I would prefer to read, listen to music, or amuse myself with learning various different languages – I plan to be an interpreter – than have parties. After all, I wouldn't really have many people to invite. I don't have a lot friends.

So what was I doing on this night that changed everything? Well, I was sitting in a comfy chair drinking hot chocolate and reading _A Dance with Dragons_, which is about as close as you can come to my definition of a perfect night, especially without anyone there to bother me. It only got better once the storm started. I've always loved thunderstorms. They're just so much fun to watch, and the air always smells so charged and alive that's it hard for me to resist going outside. That factored into my downfall in a big way, right there.

Once the lightning started, I slipped on a pair of boots and a grey hoodie and headed out into the storm. It was nearly right on top of my house, which I admit, was a little frightening. Two forks of lightning lit the sky to the west and for just a second, I couldn't see. Wind pushed at my hair, tossing into my eyes and mouth as I tilted my head back and looked at the sky.

Now, anyone who knows the first thing about thunderstorm safety probably knows a few things. One, don't stand under any tall trees. Two, don't crouch in any ditches, the electricity may use you as a bridge. Three, it's probably just a generally bad idea to be out alone in the middle of field staring stupidly up with a ferocious storm barreling down on you.

You have one guess as to which rule I was breaking. And you should probably be informed that there are no tall trees or ditches of any sort near my house.

Thunder rumbled, so loud and sudden that it felt like it was shaking in my bones. I heard another bolt of lightning tear at the sky and another clap followed louder than the first. Light blinded me once again. I could almost smell the electricity in the air and with every flash, the field was lit up like someone had hung a fluorescent light in the sky. More bolts ripped down from the clouds.

It took me a couple minutes, but I finally started to get nervous. This was the most ferocious thunderstorm I'd ever seen. There'd never been this much lightening, this much wind, and never this close. I started to wonder if it was severe, waited for the sky to turn green or the clouds to start spinning suspiciously. If they did, I resolved to make a break for the house as fast as I possibly could, but I was still pretty far away.

Maybe I should've started running right then. Maybe if I had, none of this would've happened. But I didn't, and it did.

The last thing I remember is the brightest light I'd ever seen in my life, or seen since. For the briefest second, I felt like I was on fire.

Then black.

-0-

Pain is what woke me up. Burning, agonizing pain. The kind that hurts so much you can't even scream, or see straight, or hear right.

Then it was gone.

For a few seconds, all I could do was breathe. I wasn't thinking yet. I could see green over my head, spinning like a kaleidoscope, and in whatever part of my brain was still functioning, I found that odd. My bedroom ceiling wasn't green. It was white. With little glow-in-the-dark stars on it. Where were my little glow-in-the-dark stars? I wanted my little glow-in-the-dark stars. I wanted the ceiling to stop being green and go back to how it was supposed to be. I wanted my pillow to stop poking the back of my neck like it was made of grass. I wanted to finish _A Dance with Dragons_. I was only halfway through. Actually, I kind of wanted to go back to sleep, because I was completely exhausted. I'd been having a crazy dream. It felt like there was acid burning my internal organs and fire behind my eyes. Or had that actually happened? I couldn't quite remember. I certainly _thought_ I'd been feeling an insane amount of pain just now. Had I?

When I heard birdsong, my jumbled returning thoughts shorted out. Birdsong. That wasn't right. I slept with my windows closed, especially after a thunderstorm…

I sat up.

My mouth fell open. Well, that certainly explained a lot, including why my dear little glow-in-the-dark stars were missing. I wasn't in my room. I wasn't even in my house. In fact, I didn't seem to be anywhere _near_ my house. There weren't trees like this around where I lived. They were tall, taller than any trees I'd ever seen, actually. I was sitting at the base of one, golden light filtering down through its leaves and dappling the ground around me. It was very pretty, actually.

I was still too confused to panic, in case you couldn't tell.

Slowly, I staggered to my feet. I was stiff and sore and dried, crumpled leaves fell out of my hair when I tugged on it. It felt really knotted, too. I figured I'd better go get my hairbrush, so I started walking.

I'd been walking for a couple of minutes, wondering where on earth that brush could be, when my mind finally recovered its footing, and I froze.

I was in a forest. A very hilly forest. I could see mountains through the trees. None of those three things could be found anywhere within a hundred miles of my home. I lived in Kansas, for God's sake! There are no foothills in Kansas!

Which led me to one inevitable conclusion.

I was not in Kansas anymore.

**A/N: If you have gotten far enough to read this, then thank you very much. I hope that wasn't boring or too short. The next chapter should be longer.**


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